StarCraft II: Devils' Due (13 page)

Jim sighed. “We gotta give things a little time to

cool down,” he said.

“We need to get away from this whole damn

planet,” Tychus said. “Let things
really
cool down. I

gotta tel you, after Miss Daisy’s deception, I ain’t very

partial to Wicked Wayne’s no more.”

Jim said nothing. He, too, had been shocked by

Daisy’s betrayal. He thought of Evangelina, whom he

never did get to take to bed, and Misty, who had been

his bed partner frequently, and whom he found his

thoughts lingering on. But Tychus was right. The whole

thing had left a bad taste in their mouths. New Sydney

didn’t feel like their world anymore. Time to leave it to

Butler and let the marshal think he’d won.

“Yeah,” Jim said final y. He tossed his butt into the

fire as wel . “We do the Skul s’ mission and then find a

new planet.”

“Someplace a little less … sandy. And rocky,” said

Tychus. He cast a sidelong look at his friend. “You

know,” he said casual y, “I hear that O’Banon gives his

top people pretty nice apartments, sometimes right

on Tarsonis. Nice beds, baths—one of them copper

jobs. Beds even come with women.”

Jim shot him a look. “No,” he said sharply. “I ain’t

hanging with O’Banon and his type. We work for

ourselves.”

Tychus snorted. “We’re working for the Screaming

Skul s right now, Jimmy boy.”

“That’s different and you know it. The Skul s are like

us. They got their jobs and they do them, and when

they can’t, they get people they like and trust and cut

’em in for a piece of the action. That’s decent

business. But O’Banon …” His eyes hardened. “Ain’t

nothing decent about him and what he does.”

Tychus blew out a thoughtful breath. “Al right, Jim.

We’l stick with the Skul s and our own judgment for

now.” He held out his hand, and Jim handed him

another cigar. Tychus bent to the fire, popping another

seam, and shoved his face within a few inches of it

without flinching. The cigar sputtered to life. He puffed

on it and then joined Jim at the mouth of the cave,

staring into the new morning.

“Crap coffee, too-smal clothes, no real direction,

and a gorgeous sunrise,” he said, blowing out a

stream of smoke. He grinned fiercely. “Man, this life is

fun!”

OUTSIDE CONFEDERATE–

CONTROLLED SPACE,

KOPRULU SECTOR

Jim was not a little worried that the ancient

freighter the Skul s had delivered to them might not

survive the journey.

“At least it’s a model that’s got two seats,” Tychus

said, lounging in the copilot’s chair, which had more

than a few rivets missing. “Besides, our cover is we’re

junk dealers, Jimmy. And this boat is certainly junk.”

“Yeah, but we’re supposed to be
carrying
junk, not

flying it,” Jim said. “I’m al for a convincing story, but

missions are risky enough without factoring in our own

cover as a hazard.”

“Hel , Jimmy, what’s life without a little risk?”

“Safer.”

The unusual reply caused Tychus to shoot his friend

a searching look. Jim let himself grin. “And more

boring,” he was forced to admit.

“Damn straight.”

The ship’s metal groaned as if in protest of the

assessment. Jim found himself unconsciously patting

the armrest of the chair, as if the freighter
Linda Lou

were an agitated pet. They’d both flown freighters

before. If the ships were nothing to write home about,

at least they were uncomplicated to maneuver.

Fortunately, the ship did not have to make a long

space flight. The orbital scrap yard the Skul s had

directed them to was the proverbial hop, skip, and

jump away; in actual terms, it was a mere half an orbit.

He and Tychus were no strangers to scrap yards.

They had found them ideal spots for several things:

ditching hot ships and acquiring new ones

(temporarily—usual y the “new” vessels were on their

last legs and good only for quickly getting to where

they could find superior ones); scavenging parts for

hasty repairs; and sometimes simply hiding for a

while. Some had better security than others. This one

was classified as “moderate” by the Screaming

Skul s, but that was irrelevant. Their cover would al ow

them to approach openly, as they were doing now.

Jim magnified the image on the screen. “Yep,” he

said, looking over the slowly turning debris that littered

space for several hundred kilometers. “It’s a scrap

yard.”

The console beeped harshly, and a bright light

flashed. “Refurbish and Recovery Station 5034 to

approaching vessel. State your name and business.”

Jim pressed a button. “Refurbish and Recovery

Station 5034, this is Captain Jeffrey Ulysses

Nathanial Kincaid of the
Linda Lou
.”

Tychus snorted at the acronym. Jim gave him a

huge grin and continued: “We’ve got some cargo to

drop off.”

“You bet,
Linda Lou
. Your admittance code is

3857-J. Give it to everyone you deal with: It’s good for

the next six hours.”

“Thanks, roger that.”

“Piece of cake,” Tychus said. “We could do this

with our eyes closed.”

“We haven’t done anything yet.” The mission was

not to dock, have a chat with a purchasing agent at

the control center, and sel the items they were

carrying. The mission was just a bit more complicated

than that. They needed to get on board, get access to

the private offices, and steal the junker logs. The logs

dated back years and were scrupulous records of

every piece of junk that had been delivered and sold

during that time. Including the names of those who

had dropped off debris and those who had purchased

it from the scrap yard.

Apparently, according to Declan, there were people

out there—people overburdened with creds—who

would be thril ed to pieces to get their hands on this

sort of information. And the Skul s had been

contacted by a wealthy buyer who was one of those

tragical y overburdened people.

Took al kinds, Jim supposed.

He was maneuvering the ship in past the first field

of debris when his fone beeped. He scowled. “Take

her in, Tychus. I need a minute here.”

“Sure,” Tychus drawled, putting out his cigar on the

metal flooring. He glanced over at Jim, but Raynor

was entirely focused on his fone.

It displayed another set of coordinates back on

New Sydney. Jim swore softly, then put the fone away.

What the hel was going on? Why was Myles bugging

him? Would his mom stil not take the money?

“Your mama cal ing to ask why you were late

coming home from school?”

“Shut up,” said Jim. The joke hit uncomfortably

close to home, and he was in no mood to discuss it.

Tychus peered at him for a moment, then shrugged.

“Fine by me. Here, you take the controls. I need to use

the head.” He transferred control of navigation back to

Jim, rose, stretched, and left the bridge. Jim was so

distracted, he narrowly missed a large piece of debris

and had to swerve sharply. He heard Tychus cursing

from the head, and his spirits lifted a little.

When Tychus came back and plopped down in his

chair, he asked, “What? You ain’t broken in, beat the

security sensors, found the logs, and hightailed it out

of here in the time it takes me to take a leak? You’re

slipping, Jimmy.”

Jim snorted and grinned.

A short distance in, there was a platform that was

quite obviously not debris. This would be the check-in

station, but not their eventual goal. Jim maneuvered

into position. Someone in an exo-suit came out to

meet them, a data log in hand. Even in the vacuum of

space, Jim mused, there was red tape. Jim gave the

man the code; he nodded disinterestedly and gave

them a thumbs-up.

Tychus and Jim threw on out-of-date hardskins and

stepped out to unload the fake cargo. It was, quite

literal y, junk. Jim thought that the Skul s had probably

had a grand time assembling al this as props for the

mission. Of course, it seemed to him that the Skul s

probably had a grand time doing anything.

Fifteen minutes later, after al the various gears,

drives, metal plates, sexbot heads—Tychus paused

and had to consider a moment before throwing those

in—and other detritus had been cataloged,

numbered, sorted, and placed in various areas of the

platform, the bored-looking scrap yard employee

handed them a data log.

“There’s your case number, itemized list, and

estimated payment amount,” said the man, who cal ed

himself Fitzgerald, his voice sounding even more flat

and metal ic than it should have coming out of a

hardskin. “Also enclosed are the coordinates of your

docking bay at the station proper. Show them this

data log, tel them your code, and they’l give you your

credits. And don’t worry if you can’t raise them right

away. Comm’s been on the fritz for the last half hour.”

Jim frowned slightly. In his line of work, it paid to be

suspicious. “Real y? That unusual?”

Fitz-something—Jim had already forgotten his

name—blinked at him for a moment. “This is a scrap

yard. What do
you
think?”

The man had a point, and Jim relaxed, amused.

“Thanks,” said Jim. “So we should just head on in, and

we’l find someone there who can give us

authorization to col ect scrap materials?”

“Of course. You’l want to speak with the Office of

Material Acquisitions. They’l give you a registration

number that you can use any time you return to make

future purchases. Thank you for bringing your

business to Refurbish and Recovery Station 5034.

We know you have a choice of scrap yards to—”

“Yeah, save it,” said Tychus bluntly. He turned and

jumped lightly from the platform, pul ing himself along

the tether to the
Linda Lou
.

Jim turned and smiled. “Thanks again,” he said to

Fitzgerald, then fol owed Tychus.

He was beginning to think his friend was right: this

was
a piece of cake. As he and Tychus entered the

ship, closed the door, and removed their hardskins,

Jim remarked, “We might have to take more jobs

from the Screaming Skul s. This is easy.”

“Not too many,” Tychus said. “Easy ain’t fun.”

“Forty-eight hours ago you were running out of

Wicked Wayne’s, naked as the day you were born, in

an effort to escape the due process of law. This is a

definite change.”

“And so you make my point for me.”

They maneuvered through the junk field to what

was vaguely its center. The station itself was

surprisingly wel kept up. It was a slowly turning

sphere. There were several oval viewing stations

interspersed with cranes. Al the cranes were folded

up tightly against the station, giving it the appearance

of a particularly fat metal ic spider. There were no

other ships docked, and they went to their appointed

bay with no chal enges from the station. Apparently

the communications were stil , as Fitz had put it, “on

the fritz.” They brought the rickety freighter into the

bay. The door to space irised shut behind them.

They’d visited plenty of scrap yards. Usual y there

was someone who had been alerted to their arrival

who would come to official y check them in. However,

there was no one waiting in the bay, and the door to

the corridor that connected them to the station slid

open as soon as the space door was closed.

Jim frowned and glanced at Tychus. “That’s

strange,” he said.

“Could be SOP with this place. Automatical y

programmed. You saw how interested in personal

contact the last fel ow was,” Tychus said.

Jim nodded. “Yeah. Stil , Fitz-whatshisname said

someone was supposed to check us in.”

“If the comm is stil down, then whoever it was

probably doesn’t know he’s supposed to meet us yet.

Or he could just be using the head.”

Jim chuckled. Sometimes, the simplest explanation

was the best. “Probably. Come on, let’s go see if we

can find him—or at least somebody.”

They stepped out of the frigate and headed through

the door. They hadn’t gone two steps before it

slammed shut behind them and the lights went out.